Gentle reader, be cautioned: comments sections on mainstream media sites tend to not be safe and we here at FWD/Forward don’t necessarily endorse all the opinions in these pieces. Let’s jump right in, shall we?

Trying to define and impose your definition of normal on other people — whether it be in relation to gender, sexuality, physical ability, neurological workings, weight, or some other category entirely, is alienating, damaging, and oppressive. There’s no way that defining people in opposition to “normal” and telling them that they must become normal for their own good is not harmful.

Though it’s lamentable that this is necessary, twenty years after the ADA, these cases are exactly the kind of potentially broad-ranging challenges that could strengthen the civil rights protections of the ADA and the accessibility processes used in US institutes of higher education.

Denial of accessibility is a widespread issue for people with disabilities. Jaime’s education and right to leave his apartment is seen as trivial to the leasing office, but it is very, very important. Why should he be treated as a second-class citizen? Why don’t all people have a right to education?

For the first time in India, people with multiple disability will be a part of Census 2011. The census will not only include the number of people in each disabled category but also recognise diseases like dyslexia and autism as forms of disability.

That’s all for this time. Send your links to recreading[@]disabledfeminists[.]com. Let us know if/how you want to be credited.

Last night, for the first time in ages, I got a full night’s sleep! This hasn’t happened in months, so I am very pleased! This is just a little spark of joy for me: it’s hardly a pattern yet, and I’ve only been managing to sleep sensible hours a very little bit of late. And I still haven’t felt properly rested in years and years. But it’s something.

It’s a really simple thing, sleep, something really pleasurable. Sinking into warmth and stillness and dreams. It’s something I find terribly difficult, and I feel disappointed every day when I wake up to an instant headache and drowsiness and feeling like I haven’t slept at all. It’s a real struggle to get through a day feeling like that.

And while I still feel like I haven’t slept in a week, this is progress. I may not remember the last time I actually felt rested, really ready to tackle a day, but last night has buoyed my heart up so much. Baby steps.

Gentle reader, be cautioned: comments sections on mainstream media sites tend to not be safe and we here at FWD/Forward don’t necessarily endorse all the opinions in these pieces. Let’s jump right in, shall we?

little light at Questioning Transphobia: clamavi ad te. Please note that the post discusses suicide, abuse, and murder of trans people. If you think you can handle it, though, it is powerful reading, as is everything little light writes.

When you have been told you are less than human–less than sacred–less than beautiful–your community has failed you. When you believe it, it is because your community has failed you. I do not intend to mince words. … You deserve better. Because you are not the problem. You are not broken. You are not worthless. You are not a problem and you are not a mistake.

Now, of course, usability is not the same as accessibility; it is focused on ease of general use, for a mass audience. And, usability doesn’t always incorporate a universal design perspective in which the needs of those who face the most challenges are centered, with the understanding that products designed for that group may also be more usable by others.

That said, usability and communication is an interesting theme, as it seems to implicitly tie back to media accessibility in particular.

Gentle reader, be cautioned: comments sections on mainstream media sites tend to not be safe and we here at FWD/Forward don’t necessarily endorse all the opinions in these pieces. Let’s jump right in, shall we?

There was a debate over policy and procedure but ultimately it came down to human conscience, something that I am incredibly appreciative of. But should I really have to rely on human conscience overriding policy and procedure?

Working with a team of researchers, the Ryerson psychology professor invented a chair that allows deaf people to feel music through vibrations. He also works with both deaf and hearing musicians to compose music that focuses on vibrations and vision rather than sound.

I’ve been thinking about this man ever since, and the way he read me as abled. But mostly I’ve been thinking about assumptions about the kinds of people who do disability advocacy. Namely, there’s a strong perception amongst the abled public that people with disabilities are unable to advocate for ourselves. Supposedly, our abled family and friends do it all for us.

That’s all for this time. Send your links to recreading[@]disabledfeminists[.]com. Let us know if/how you want to be credited.

But that’s not all! Check out the Don’t DIS blog. I’m going to be writing there over the next month about such topics as who gets to speak about disability advocacy, narratives of disabled laziness, where conversations about disability tend to stop, body image while disabled and what respecting disabled people means. You yourself can participate: check out this post about blogging for the campaign here.

Welcome to November. Gentle reader, be cautioned: comments sections on mainstream media sites tend to not be safe and we here at FWD/Forward don’t necessarily endorse all the opinions in these pieces. Let’s jump right in, shall we?

In the UK, people with disabilities have been among the hardest hit by the recent Thatcher 2.0 ConDem cuts of the Osborne Review. The employment support allowance (ESA) which was previously able to be claimed until the person finds a job has now been set with a limit of one year. I’m sure that’ll be of great comfort to people, cos disabilities also expire after year amiright?

I ask you, my loyal readers how can we as a community expect our current rights to continue to be protected, our equity as members of society to be validated, or our issues to be seen as important when we are not seen as a community that votes?

And what do you need to do after you’ve recognised your privilege of voting access? You can either use your privilege to uplift the people you oppress or you can ignore it and continue to harm (directly or indirectly) the most vulnerable people in our country.

The State Government committed funding for disability services five years ago under the Stronger Together program, but money for the next five years has not been included in the forward estimates of the next budget.

A new study, conducted by the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health in collaboration with the universities of Turku and London, has revealed that sleep disturbances increase the risk of work disability and may slow the return to work process.

That’s all for this time. Send your links to recreading[@]disabledfeminists[.]com. Let us know if/how you want to be credited.

Gentle reader, be cautioned: comments sections on mainstream media sites tend to not be safe and we here at FWD/Forward don’t necessarily endorse all the opinions in these pieces. Let’s jump right in, shall we?

A project as part of a Tunisian-Italian partnership to promote the status and integration of the disabled in society, will soon lead to the building of a house for visually impaired and blind people in Oum Larayes in the governorate of Gafsa (South western Tunisia).

In a settlement that will serve as a model for enforcing the rights of the disabled, the Justice Department reached an agreement with Georgia to move many patients with mental illnesses and developmental disabilities out of the state’s notoriously dangerous psychiatric hospitals and into the community.

Spoilers for Farscape: the third part of “Liars, Guns and Money” in Season 2 and, in Season 3, “Season of Death” and something you really really really won’t want spoiled for the second part of “Self-Inflicted Wounds”.

I like to keep DVD boxsets on hand for my study breaks, and my latest show is a 1990s/2000s Australian/US television show called Farscape. It’s a really fun show about an astronaut who gets sucked through a wormhole and is forced to align himself with a bunch of aliens in some far-off part of the universe – watch it, do! – but that’s not what I want to talk about.

Towards the end of the second season, a minor recurring character called Rorf loses an eye to an enemy, to put it in the least graphic terms possible. I started to get a sense of premonition, although I wasn’t sure what it was about just yet. Rorf is killed in battle towards the end of the episode. At the start of the third season, Zhaan, one of the main characters, saves the life of Aeryn, another key character, at the cost of her own health. She’s dying, she tells her fellow crew members for a number of episodes. No, they say, we’re going to get you to a planet, not too far away, where you can be healed. No, she says, I’m going to die. And, good as her word, she ends up sacrificing her life for the good of the crew before they can get her to a planet where she can be healed.

What I got out of these two instances is the idea that injury is a symbolic prelude to death. That, if you’re altered from what you have been, life isn’t worth living anymore, that you’re only good for giving up everything for those who are “whole”. That’s a pretty distressing message to be putting out there.

Have you found similar representations of disability or injury in popular culture?

The month’s going fast, isn’t it? Gentle reader, be cautioned: comments sections on mainstream media sites tend to not be safe and we here at FWD/Forward don’t necessarily endorse all the opinions in these pieces. Let’s jump right in, shall we?

Sometimes I wonder what I should do about this living in a box thing – should I work with it? Get it some comfy cushions, make myself right at home, play up to the illusion that I’m going nowhere fast. Or should I throw the damn box out of the window and continue the daily fight to prove that putting people in boxes – no matter who they are or what they do – is a very outmoded way of thinking?

Clearly there are two ways to view every situation. I am wondering about all of you. Was the curtain a thing designed to give privacy or was it something which indicated the hiding way of shameful movement?

This bullying of innocent families (who, let’s be honest, have enough on their plate) must stop. The Government is relying on the apathy, relative inertia and fear of the disabled community to make life hell for the people who deserve it least. No other group in society is so reliant on the Government from birth as people like myself who are born with a disability. We must support each other, and band together to tell whoever is behind this vendetta against good, hard-working families who are dedicated to their kids, that enough’s enough.

Associate Professor Fatimah Lateef said: “It is also significant that there was another follow-up survey (to the one done in 2004) that showed 37 per cent (of those surveyed) said even if they had serious mental health symptoms, they would not come forward to seek professional help because of the fear of stigma.”

Gentle reader, be cautioned: comments sections on mainstream media sites tend to not be safe and we here at FWD/Forward don’t necessarily endorse all the opinions in these pieces. Let’s jump right in, shall we?

Everyone deserves safety, no matter what their mental health or disability status. But there is an extra responsibility to keep safe those who have been placed in restrictive and vulnerable environments.

I mean, to me this is common sense and people should already be questioning “non-disabled people>>>>everyone else forever,” but if we really need a study to show that forced normalization in every area of life is really NOT SMART, studying women would be an easy way to do it.

I hate things like this, where it feels like I’m treated as an inconvenience. It’s not like I get some kind of power trip asking for accomodations. I don’t push people around because it’s fun. When I ask for something, it’s because I NEED it, and my health, safety, and ability to continue going to school are jeopardized.

Look, I’m sorry I’m so inconvenient. But if you had to deal with the sheer number of inconveniences I deal with every day because of my disabilities, you’d realize that I’m really asking for very little.

American Apparel, Inc., a clothing manufacturer which operates what it says is the largest garment factory in the nation, violated federal law when it terminated a disabled garment worker while he was on medical leave for cancer treatment, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit filed last week.